Champaign-Urbana Community Fab Lab

The CUCFL Youth Council is sponsoring an open lab for youth, 10-16 years old, on Saturday April 20th from 10 until Noon. Come to the lab and start your Earth Day celebrations early. You can make cards, stickers, or engravings and then take a plant home with you when you leave.

You can also see a Raspberry Pi in action. The Raspberry Pi is a 25-35 dollar computer built around an ARM processor. It is a great tool for learning to program and has been inspiring people all around the world to make lots of fun stuff. Here is a chance to try one out before deciding if it is something you would be interested in.

We now have an additional scanner-printer available at the lab for color printing and color paper. Ask at the desk, we ask for 50 cents a sheet.

From the Open Education Database: http://oedb.org/blogs/ilibrarian/2013/a-librarians-guide-to-makerspaces/

Possibly of interest: a project from the Mixed Reality Lab at Keio University.  From this description, we could probably replicate it--though I don't know if we would want to.  :-)

See their web page for an explanation:

http://ringu.mixedrealitylab.org/

The CUCFL Youth Council is sponsoring another open lab for people between the ages of 10 and 16 on Saturday the 16th from 10 until noon. If you misses our soldering day, we still have badges available for soldering at 3 dollars a piece. If you don't have a project you want to work on, come in anyway and we will help you think of something to make. If you are able to make it please let me know at jeffhoward0@gmail.com as soon as you can.

Joan from the UIUC Women's Resource Center was kind enough to donate us some remote control toys and pine wood derby car sets. They're now available for free use in the lab!

Matthew Schroyer (www.mentalmunition.com) was kind enough to film a time-lapse of our UP!3D printer in action:

Here it is printing mounting for a sensor.

The tools and materials section has been updated to reflect our current offerings. I've also made the example creations page a little friendlier.

Luke, you will be happy to know that all pictures are now hosted on the Fab Lab server.

For the Maker Space Knowledge Café at Chicago Public Library.

The Fab Lab presented today at the 2013 University of Illinois Public Engagement Symposium. Thanks to Gary and MK Watson, Virginia McCreary, Andrew Knight and Jeff Ginger for showing the public some of our tools (live UP3D + Silhouette!), curriculum and collaborations. Additional thanks to everyone who stopped by to make something!

We would also like to extend our gratitude to the Office of Public Engagement for providing the grant that enabled the community Fab Lab installations at Stratton Elementary, Urbana Free Library and Tap In Leadership Academy.

A little over a year ago, 3D printing was a funky new technology that you might find at modestly sized booths in the basement level of the Las Vegas Convention Center at CES. Recently, President Obama mentioned it in the same breath as Apple and Intel during his State of the Union address, while talking about ways to create new jobs and manufacturing in the United States.

Read more on CNET:

Lawrence Bonassar and others have developed methods to 3d print human ears using actual live cartelidge mixture that congealed into an ear in 15 minutes. They tested it on rats and the ears were found to retain their shape and usability after a year and integrate into the rats. There is a  potential for medical breathroughs but also the danger of abuse and misuse (looking at you Hollywood, and maybe Russia) but it leaves us feeling a bit earie

Professor Behrokh Khoshnevis has been doing research into using 3D printing technology to solve world problems, particularly housing in emergency situations and low-income environments. Watch the video and learn where home-construction might be going in the not-too-distant future.

More information:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2187623/Contour-Crafting-builds-house-24-hours.html

An infographic about 3D printing in education and related areas. Click to see the full version.